


Isn't She Lovely

by homoceratops



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: Angst, Death, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2643452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homoceratops/pseuds/homoceratops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura’s thirtieth birthday quickly approaching, she and Carmilla decide they’re ready to expand their tiny family by one. The Karnsteins think they’re ready for their adventures in motherhood, but Carmilla has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isn't She Lovely

It’s the third or fourth time Laura exclaims, “Baby, this one’s perfect!” that Carmilla decides she has had her fill of sperm donor shopping. Browsing through the thick binder that the bank had lent them, potential candidates pulled out and splayed across the bedspread, Laura lay with her head in her hands as she picked apart each donor’s qualifications.

"This one has a Masters in Neuroscience from Brown," Laura says with awe, "and he’s six feet even, with blue eyes and… oh." Carmilla’s eyebrows raise curiously, asking the unspoken question of what could possibly be wrong with this one. "He has red hair," the shorter girl replies after a beat and Carmilla sneers. "Oh, sure, let’s have his kid," she says sarcastically, "you know I’d love nothing more than to have a giant ginger of our very own." Laura chuckles under her breath, shaking her head. "You know I have my heart set on a brunette, baby," and Laura leans over, planting a soft kiss on Carmilla’s shoulder. "We’ll keep looking."

The hunt continues on into the night, and the women go through two full packages of cookies before they finally, finally find the absolute perfect donor. He’s a writer with his PhD. from Yale, and he teaches English Lit at Colombia; no history of heart disease, cancer or mental illness, and best of all, he clocks in at five-foot-eight with perfectly mundane brown hair and brown eyes. Laura writes down “Donor No. 394HJF9” on the notepad beside their bed before rolling over and falling sleepily into Carmilla’s arms. As the tiny blonde drifts off beside her, Carmilla reaches a hand down and rubs just above Laura’s belly button, an excited smirk peeking through her usual indifferent expression as she thought of what was to come.

__

"It’s okay, cupcake, squeeze my hand," Carmilla coos softly into Laura’s ear, the sixth or seventh consecutive shot making its way into the tiny woman’s arm, though Carmilla lost count after the tears started to fall. Her fingers have begun to lose sensation as Laura grips her hands around the other’s as the long needles penetrate her skin and muscle, and finally the doctor says "Okay, Laura, last one," as calmly as she can muster, though clearly the specialist is losing her patience.

Neither had anticipated just how inactive Laura’s reproductive system was, and though she wasn’t infertile, it had taken round after round of hormone therapy to prepare the woman’s body for a pregnancy. Five months had passed since their first attempt at getting pregnant - a messy ordeal featuring a turkey baster and too much tequila - had resulted in a tiny blue minus sign mocking them from the pee-soaked pregnancy test. As much as Laura hated being poked and prodded, she’d agreed to whatever the doctor recommended, and since then, had all manner of injections, sonograms, and cold, gynecological probes manipulating her likelihood of carrying a baby.

But today, they’d finally made a breakthrough. It had been nearly a month since the fertility doctor had implanted the tiny embryo inside of her as Carmilla waited in the next room, and now, a final round of hormones pulsing inside Laura’s veins, the doctor declared the fetus viable. Looking at it on the ultrasound machine, Carmilla admitted to herself that it resembled a squirrel, but, she realized with a watery smile, that it was their squirrel.

"That’s our baby," Laura whispered, interlacing her fingers with Carmilla’s. "That’s our baby," Carmilla repeated, a small sigh falling off her lips. A framed picture of the squirrel was hung in the living room as soon as they got home.

__

Although the smile on her face is incredibly telling, Carmilla will never admit how much she enjoys getting ready for the baby to arrive. A treasure trove of furniture sits piled high in the living room, painstakingly assembled by the vampire herself - who was especially glad she’d taken that year to learn Swedish in the 1930’s. Clad in an embarrassingly maternal pair of overalls, she’d taken to painting the nursery, and by supper, the walls (and Carmilla) were covered in a bright shade of baby pink.

With what looks like a basketball stuffed underneath her blouse, Laura waddles into the little room, her mouth automatically falling open in happy surprise. “Baby!” she exclaims, leaning on the doorframe for support, something she needs a lot of these days. Carmilla darts over taking her wife’s arm to stabilize her. “You like it?” she says, teeth flashing as she smiles. “I love it,” Laura answers, lifting her chin to plant a kiss on the other’s lips, “it’s perfect.”

Kissing back, she gives Laura another, then another, then a peck on her nose, then her forehead, peppering her pale skin with them as she wraps her arms around Laura. “You think she’ll like it?” she asks, and Laura nods against Carmilla’s chest. “I think she’ll love it,” comes Laura’s muffled reply, and the two stand in silence for a minute or two, soaking up the love that went into their baby’s sanctuary.

It’s a moment later that Carmilla feels Laura tense up in her arms, a stifled groan escaping her throat. “Baby, are you okay?” she asks, a nervous lilt in her voice, “Back cramps again?” Laura doesn’t reply, but another moan joins the first, then another. “Baby?” Carmilla strains, pulling away to look at Laura’s face, which is scrunched up in pain. “She’s coming,” she chokes out, and Carmilla’s mouth drops open in surprise. “Now? We have another three weeks!” she yells, and she can’t help but to grimace at the wet patch forming at Laura’s feet. Laura just nods again before another groan registers.

"C’mon," Carmilla says, lifting her tiny wife into her arms and delicately carrying her toward the car. Buckling Laura into the front seat, she doesn’t bother with her own seatbelt as she speeds out of the garage and towards the freeway. Considering Laura’s condition, the doctor had warned that the baby might make a break for it earlier than expected, though Carmilla had hoped they’d have a little more time before being thrust into parenthood. Driving haphazardly in the direction of the hospital, one hand wrapped around Laura’s, the only thought that register in her brain was ‘I’m going to be someone’s mom."

__

Twenty seven hours. If she had been warned that she’d be in labor for twenty seven hours, Carmilla is nearly certain Laura would’ve never gone through with their natural birth plan. It’s a harrowing twenty-seven hours, too, and even after the centuries of evil and pain and evil she’d witnessed while on Earth, she’d never seen someone suffer so rawly as Laura did. It pained her to see the woman she loved more than life itself struggling in the hospital bed, her skin red-hot and sweating, her legs shaking each time the doctors forced her worn-out body to push again.

Carmilla didn’t start to really worry until the fifteenth hour, just around eight in the morning, when she overheard a nurse mention that the baby’s heartbeat was slowing, that they needed to get their baby out before the complications worsened. Stroking Laura’s sopping hair, she planted a kiss atop her head, praying to a God she was certain didn’t exist to please, please let their family make it through this in one piece. Luckily, someone must have been listening, because twelve hours later, at just before nine o’clock in the evening, little Lucy Karnstein’s wails could be heard throughout the maternity ward.

"You did it, baby," Carmilla whispered, relief flooding her voice as tears clouded her vision, "you did it, Laura," and she wrapped herself around the exhausted blonde. The wails echoed throughout the room as the nurses cleaned all manner of gunk from Lucy’s skin. Despite more than a full day of horrendous labor, Lucy Hollis Karnstein had finally entered the world, fighting and screaming as she might. Declared overall healthy despite her low birth-weight, the doctors handed the tiny baby over the her mothers immediately, and the infant calmed down considerably as she was placed into Laura’s arms. The woman managed a quiet coo before drifting off into her own well-deserved sleep.

__

Adjusting to having a new baby in the house is just that: an adjustment. Laura is sleepless and Carmilla is cranky, and Lucy only stops crying when one of her mothers is holding her. She spent the first week of her life in the hospital fighting a mild case of jaundice, and the nurses told the Karnsteins that the only times the NICU wasn’t filled with the sounds of Lucy’s screaming was when the women would visit, spending hours stroking her thin, premature skin through the holes in her little incubator.

At home, not much has changed, and the pair has learned to sleep in shifts so that someone is always around to feed the baby or rock her or change the little diapers she can’t seem to keep clean.

"Carmilla," Laura groans, deep purple bags beneath her eyes and clad in the same sweatpants she’s worn for the past eight days. "Carmilla something’s wrong," she finally says, "babies aren’t supposed to cry for three weeks straight, Carm." She’s exhausted, but more than that, she’s worried. She knew motherhood would be a challenge but she wonders if they’ve made a grave mistake, if their baby is sick, if their baby hates them.

"Laura," her wife replies, just as tired and just as ragged, "Laura, no, she’s okay." She rocks Lucy in the chair she built the month before, whispering to the infant who has finally fallen asleep, at least for the moment. "She’s just, y’know, whiny, I guess," and she pats child’s back rhythmically. Carmilla stops the rocking for a moment to stand up and walk over to the pink and white crib in the corner, gently leaning down to place their baby in her own bed. She lays quietly for a split second, leaving her mothers thinking that maybe things are going to start improving, but another beat passes, and a piercing wail breaks the silence. On cue, Laura begins crying, too," leaving against the wall and sliding to the floor, curling up into her knees.

Carmilla can’t help but feel entirely useless, a failure at comforting her wife, an even bigger failure at calming her baby daughter, and a string of plaintive curse words fall out of her mouth in her native tongue, harsh German words begging the little baby to please, please be quiet. Oddly enough, it words, and big brown eyes stare up at bigger brown eyes, as though the infant is under a spell of some sort.

"Wirst du jetzt still sein?" she asks, a look of disbelief on her face, and Lucy doesn’t utter a sound, her mouth merely forming an amused O-shape at her mother’s words. Laura’s weeping stops from the opposite corner of the room and she looks up, curious and hopeful. Pushing her luck, Carmilla opens her mouth again, this time a soft German lullaby falling from her lips; it’s a calm melody, but sad, and Laura wishes she knew what the lyrics were saying, though Lucy doesn’t seem to care. Soon, her little eyes are growing heavy and falling shut, leaving the room truly quiet as Carmilla finishes her song.

"You actually did it, baby," Laura whispers, still sunken into a pile on the plush carpet. Carmilla nods, walking over and falling to the floor beside her wife, her thick head of dark curls in Laura’s lap, and within seconds, the entire Karnstein family is fast asleep all at once for the first time in weeks.

__

Oddly, for such an extraordinary family, the next three years are rather unspectacular. Laura returns to work after six months, quickly working her way towards becoming the youngest Editor in Chief her newspaper has ever seen. Meanwhile, Carmilla adjusts to life as a stay-at-home mom, and adapts to an existence that revolves around Sesame Street and homemade baby food.

Lucy’s first birthday passes, and everyone is astounded as to how much she looks like Laura. Once-dark hair lightens as she passes the one-year mark, though her eyes remain dark and mysterious. People joke that she must have gotten them from Carmilla, and though she chuckles along, she doesn’t like to think about where they actually came from, or rather, the nameless ‘who’ she has to thank for them.

Perry and LaFontaine visit to celebrate the little girl’s big day, with Perry preparing a gorgeous pink-frosted chocolate cake and Laf bringing along a hastily-wrapped chemistry set as a gift. “For when she’s older,” they say with a shrug. Even after Lucy dives face first into the confection, Laura still manages to eat a third of it, and it’s clear their little daughter has inherited her mom’s love of sweets.

Lucy is three years, four months, and six days old when Carmilla and Laura begin packing the car. It’s a mini-van, bright red, and entirely of Carmilla’s choosing. The stuff the back rows of seats with duffel bags and ziplock baggies of snacks for the journey, and Laura’s even had matching t-shirts made: “Karnstein Family Vacation” they read, a picture of Mickey Mouse’s head below the words, accented with “Disney World 2029” below his face. She makes sure Carm’s shirt is black.

It’s a nearly thirteen hour drive to the amusement park, and though they have plenty of money to afford it, Carmilla refuses to take an airplane. They’re too cramped in her opinion, and loud and dirty; she doesn’t want Lucy anywhere near one of those ‘things,’ as she calls them. Laura just nods and smiles, never making fun of Carmilla’s fear of flying. For inconveniencing her family, Carmilla offers to drive the whole way, though, and in one shot if she can manage it. She doesn’t want to stop, she doesn’t need the sleep she says - it’s driving, how taxing could it be?

Carmilla doesn’t mean to fall asleep at the wheel.

She’s not even tired, she tells herself, she’s hardly distracted. It’s quiet, aside from Laura and Lucy’s identical snores and the hum of the car’s engine. There’s not many cars on the road, and she finds herself thinking about their days back at Silas all those years ago when she drifts off for a few seconds.

Foot on the accelerator, it’s the impact of the car against a sturdy evergreen tree that wakes Carmilla. Laura is beside her, Lucy wrapped safely in her arms, where they’d both drifted off after the little girl had had a bad dream. Even at three years old, she still slept the most soundly while being rocked by her mommies. The sound of their skulls against the van’s windshield is absolutely sickening, and Carmilla wishes she didn’t have sonic hearing as she hears each and every one of their snapping bones crack.

As she comes to, the world vibrant and terrifying as the situation registers, she looks to her right, an inhuman cry escaping her mouth as she sees her wife and daughter crumpled before the seat of the car and the shattered windshield. “Laura,” she chokes out, reaching out a hand to pry herself from her position, “Laura,” she says again, trying not to break.

Pulling her tiny wife into her arms, she cradles the two girls she loves more than anything else in the universe, and she knows there’s only one thing she can do. She knew that Laura never wanted to be turned, that one lifetime was enough for her, that she wanted nothing more than to be normal, but Carmilla wasn’t going to let the woman who had given her a reason to continue existing go without a fight. Both she and Lucy were bleeding out, she could tell from the thick, sticky red stains that seeped from their heads, and she closed her eyes as she positioned her mouth above Laura’s neck, all of her senses heightened as her fangs unfurled.

"Lucy," came a choked moan.

What? Carmilla pulled back, eyes bleary with tears. She locks on Laura, whose own blue eyes open slightly looking at the love of her life. “Carmilla, save our baby,” she pleads, voice strained and weak; Carmilla can feel the life draining from her. “Laura, no,” she croaks, “Laura, I can’t lose you,” and the fat, hot tears fall from her eyes and soak the neckline of the t-shirt she’d been so against wearing.

"Carmilla, now," Laura groans, her eyes closing for the last time, a small whimper coming from the blonde’s lap. Unable to contain her sobs as they rattle in her chest, Carmilla reaches out, pulling her daughter from Laura’s lap and cradling her, ignoring how stiff she feels as she sinks her fangs into her thin, delicate neck. She doesn’t want to hurt her anymore than she already has to, and her senses are all ablaze as she tastes her daughters blood, ignoring the coppery taste as she lets the venom seep into the little girl’s body.

The change isn’t quick, and she knows Lucy will soon be in a world of pain, but for now, the bleeding from her head wound has stopped, and she opens her dark brown eyes with a dazed look about her. “Be quiet, little one,” she mumbles in German, and Lucy closes them once again, drifting off into a very deep sleep.

Carmilla hears Laura’s heart stop beating as the flashing red lights of a state trooper pull alongside the road’s treebelt, and a man in a large hat jumps from his vehicle, a radio at his lips calling for back up as he examines the car wreck in horror. Leaning over while she still has the chance, Carmilla plants a kiss on Laura’s temple, her salty tears mixing with the little woman’s blood. “I chose you,” she says quietly, her eyes flitting to the little lump in her arms, trying to dissipate the ache of resentment, “I wanted to choose you, baby.” Another sob breaks the silence inside the destroyed car. “I love you, Laura.”

__

Most people leave flowers on their loved one’s graves, but Carmilla always leaves chocolate. Lucy always insists on sneaking a bite on the way to the cemetery, but Carmilla thinks this is an acceptable trade for the upheaval in their lives. When she’s in town, she does her best to visit Perry and LaFontaine, as well, but the juxtaposition of the vampire and her eternal toddler alongside the ever-graying couple only makes Carmilla sadder. Their presence makes her wonder about Laura, about who she might have become, about growing old and taking care of the woman she’d planned a lifetime with before her own carelessness had snuffed out the only light in her life.

They spend a year or two in a town before moving on, not wanting anyone to notice how peculiar it is that her little girl never seems to age, how her hair never grows, how she never starts kindergarten. Carmilla doesn’t mind the fresh starts much, and they always seem exciting for Lucy. Though no matter how many decades pass, she never seems to find anything that fills the Laura-sized hole inside of her. Even worse, Lucy never seems to ever understand the permanence of their situation.

"Mama,’ comes the little voice from the living room floor, a family of Barbie dolls splayed out on a rainbow-colored carpet, "where’s Mommy?"

"She’s on vacation, baby," Carmilla replies with a sigh, the easiest answer she can offer, "we’ll see her later." If only that were true.


End file.
